§J) "January and February (^ 



Crocuses are companionable flowers, and they seem to 

 enjoy huddling together. Grown separately, the flowers 

 are, or should be, larger (I have never observed this to be 

 actually the case, but there is such a thing as taking all the 

 rules and theories one finds in gardening manuals too 

 seriously !) Picking crocuses planted out singly makes one 

 feel guilty of a crime, but picking them from fat neglected 

 clumps is a joy. 



I am writing for the first time this year out of 

 doors, on one of those glorious sunny days which always 

 come in February and for which one is so much more 

 grateful than for a whole week of summer sun. And 

 I have just been counting the number of flowers on 

 the largest clump of golden crocuses (C. vermis) by the 

 apple trees in our garden. There are at least seventy-eight 

 flowers fully out, though how they have managed to crowd 

 themselves into a space measuring only about 9 inches by 

 12 is little short of a miracle. The flowers are as large as 

 any grown singly and very long-stalked (some of them 

 certainly 5 or 6 inches long), and, pushing aside the fully 

 expanded flowers, one could see there were masses more 

 coming on. When I came there were eight or nine bees 

 working at the flowers, and watching the bees for some 

 time it was delightful to see how often the same bees, 

 after a hurried visit to smaller clumps near by, returned to 

 feast on the riches spread before them on the largest 

 clumps. The words of an Elizabethan madrigal come into 

 my mind : 



1 1 like the bee with Toil and Pain 



Fly humbly o'er the flow'ry Plain 



And with the Busy Throng 



The little sweets my Labours gain 



I work into a song.' 



27 



